


Preoccupation

by dorwinionwhining



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Third Kinslaying (Tolkien), Sirion, is it hurt/comfort if the character who needs comforting utterly hates it?, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29645400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorwinionwhining/pseuds/dorwinionwhining
Summary: Celeborn tries to have a conversation. Oropher is more interested in having a breakdown.
Relationships: Celeborn & Oropher (Tolkien)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	Preoccupation

**Author's Note:**

> So this whole snippet is me working through some of my roughly eleven thousand overlapping headcanons regarding the Mirkwood royals and thus might be slightly incoherent.
> 
> I know it's popular and makes plenty of sense to fit Oropher into Thingol's line, but I've always kind of loved the idea of him coming from nowhere and being elevated to royalty slowly over time as the Second and Third Kinslayings play out and Doriath's survivors dwindle, so that's what I've included here. I've also made Oropher troubled and prickly and the type of person no one quite knows how to deal with because, well, that's the sense I've got from him reading the little we know of his character, and I love characters like that. I hope it ends of working for at least some of you.
> 
> I'd love any positive feedback. Kudos and comments are both appreciated! I've been in such a creative slump both when it comes to writing and even reading other people's work. It's nice to think I might be getting out of it and hopefully some encouragement will help.

"What are _you_ doing here?"

"Your son was concerned." Celeborn folded his long legs underneath him as he sat, resting his hands on his knees and not quite looking at Oropher.

Oropher clenched his jaw. "And why is my son's concern your concern?"

"Are we not cousins?" Celeborn asked, and the worst of it was that he sounded sincere, his tone light and accepting even when confronted with Oropher's scowling harshness.

But Oropher could do nothing other than dig his heels in, bitterness creeping up like vines to engulf him.

"We are not," he replied shortly.

Celeborn beheld him steadily. "Cousins of a kind, at least, now that so few of us remain."

"And when they next come to slaughter us will you call us brothers?" Oropher looked up, eyes glinting darkly and teeth bared in an unfriendly snarl.

"We are safe here," Celeborn began.

"We are _not_."

"We can be," he temporized, lips settling into a neutral frown, his tone still infuriatingly calm and understanding. "Will you live your entire life pulled taut as a bowstring with no enemy in sight?"

Oropher hissed.

"Oropher," Celeborn began again.

"No," he said.

The breath he drew in next rattled in his chest, catching against the back of his throat and stinging him. His fingers spasmed around his knees, and he tightened his grip, nails digging into fabric long enough to leave wrinkles behind.

He forced himself to relax, in increments and then all at once. His wrists ached.

"What do you suggest I do?" he asked bitterly. "Make believe the enemy that hides just beyond the ridge line is a far off, distant thing?"

"No," Celeborn said.

"Then what?" Oropher asked and laughed wildly when Celeborn remained silent.

His laughter trailed off eventually, leaving a hollow, ringing silence behind, and he found himself with his head resting in his hands, tears threatening to spill over the corners of his eyes.

Celeborn's hand hovered over his arm without touching. Oropher flinched.

"Do not," he warned.

"We are not close," Celeborn admitted, and a part of Oropher almost wanted to thank him for it.

Celeborn's hand continued to hover. "Still," he said. "I wish I could comfort you."

Oropher shuddered.

He turned and stared at Celeborn through the watery blur of his lashes and felt the first of his tears splash hotly against his skin. "There is no one who could."

His words came out thick and dark, and Celeborn withdrew his hand.

"You know what I myself have lost," he said. "And it is not the same, but you must know how truly sorry I am for you."

"They killed my wife," Oropher said and laughed again immediately, cracked and brittle and distraught. The sound tore at his throat like the darkness itself had ripped it from him. "They stole half of my soul from me and have the audacity to call _us_ thieves."

"You aren't wrong, either for your fear or your anger," Celeborn told him, and Oropher could hear the second half of his lecture before he spoke it.

"Merely for the extent of it, is that it?" he asked rhetorically.

Celeborn frowned, and it was sad and terrible sympathetic. Oropher hated it.

"You leach your own strength," he said.

Oropher ignored him. "There is no true safety here."

"There is no true safety anywhere unless we create it for ourselves."

"And you believe that we can do so?" Oropher dashed away the last of his tears, shaking out his hands. 

Celeborn's eyes shadowed for a brief moment, barely discernible. "We must try."

Oropher scoffed, face still hot with grief. "Try, then. And I will watch the road."


End file.
